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... they feeling bad physically, they also are not feeling very good mentally. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 139) Let us take a look at how the childs consciousness is changed as a result of alcohol intake. First of all, it must be pointed out that consciousness is directly controlled by the brain; therefore the changes caused by alcohol are really physiological changes. However, as many of the ways alcohol acts on the brain are unknown, it is easier to discuss the resulting changes separately. When drinking begins, and alcohol starts to take effect in small amounts, feelings of happiness and general well-being usually occur. These feelings are due in part to the actual, physical effects of alcohol, but they can also be due to the expectations of the user.
Studies have shown that if one group is given mixed drinks and another group is told it is being given alcohol but really drinks a beverage that contains no alcohol, some in the group that actually drank alcohol will show no effects at all, while some in the group that drank no alcohol will begin to act high. (White, W. L. , 2003, p. 261) In actual social situations, people who do act high earlier than the rest put pressure on those around them to drink more and faster so they can get high, too. Those who get high suddenly have a great deal of energy, which accounts in part for using the word high to describe the feeling. They want to dance, or they become more talkative, or they laugh a lot. This is partly a physiological reaction. Alcohol contains calories, which provide energy.
Also certain of the brain's mechanisms are inhibited, resulting in the suppression of unpleasant feelings or anxieties, and hyperactivity of other portions of the brain. But partly, again, it is also psychological. Drinkers deceive themselves that they are happy and free from care. Just as children are affected more quickly by alcohol than adults because of their smaller size and greater inexperience with alcohol, so, too, they are more susceptible to psychological intoxication. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 183) But whether one is a teen-ager who has had two drinks or an adult who has had four, one is practicing self-deception under the influence of that amount of alcohol. When even slightly intoxicated, people tend to feel superior and not capable of wrongdoing or, especially, wrong thinking. But if people who feel socially inadequate, particularly shy or painfully self-conscious persons, think alcohol will make them as energetic or as talkative or as funny as their normally more extroverted friends under the influence of alcohol, they will be disappointed.
Studies have shown that alcohol affects outgoing people more than quiet people. (Casswell, S. , Pledger, M. , & Hooper, R. , 2003, p. 605) Both can have the same blood alcohol level and still act very differently. Most of us probably know a normally outgoing person who becomes really obnoxious after a few drinks. The person who is normally quiet and introverted will be more relaxed and perhaps more talkative, but not as conspicuously high. With a few drinks in them, children begin to have fantasies in which they are incredibly powerful. The plain-looking girl imagines herself being able to attract the handsomest and most popular boy. The boy who never seems to be able to say the right thing imagines putting down a more eloquent acquaintance with the perfect phrase.
Children under the influence of liquor often come up with what they believe are the most creative ideas -- for a song, for an assigned paper, for an invention, even for starting a business. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 214) They are encouraged to take chances. A child under the influence of alcohol may take on larger and tougher opponents in a fight he would not seriously consider starting when sober. The same change has occurred in laboratory animals. Animals that will not go after food for fear of receiving an electric shock will overcome that fear under the influence of alcohol. (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 133) A girl who has had a few drinks may forget her fears of pregnancy or her usual ideas of morality, especially when her partner has acquired from alcohol the courage to be more insistent and has an inflated idea of his own sexual prowess.
It should be pointed out here that drinking may very well lower sexual inhibitions, but it does not improve sexual performance. In fact, it decreases it, since alcohol affects the central nervous system, causing nerve impulses to slow down. It also decreases muscle coordination. Both these factors are important in sexual activity. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 239) All these changes occur gradually from the beginning of drinking to the point when the "high" is highest. After that point is reached, children begin to come down, to feel tired and sleepy. They get depressed and become more aware of their troubles; sometimes they even start to cry.
This most often happens to those who were depressed to begin with and drank to overcome that state. One of the aftermaths of drinking is physical discomfort, such as extreme thirst, or a headache, or general bone tiredness. At that point, being no longer in the euphoric high state, drinkers may believe they are sober, or nearly sober, once again, and feel able, for example, to drive home. This is not true.
While the level of alcohol in the blood may have begun to fall, it does so gradually, and it will be several more hours (the actual number depends on how many drinks have been downed) before it reaches the level of zero. Drinkers may be coming down psychologically, while being physically still quite drunk. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 155) They may have stopped laughing and talking and imagining themselves as powerful, sexy, articulate, and so forth, but they still may have trouble walking without staggering or talking without slurring their words, and their reflexes and decision-making powers are far from normal. In most cases, drinkers fall asleep long before the blood alcohol level reaches zero and most of the effects of alcohol have worn off. Sleep, incident, is something that drinkers' bodies almost force them to do. The familiar image of a drunk passing out while still drinking is an example of a bodily survival mechanism. (Berndt, Thomas and Keefe, Keunho, 1995, p. 1321) Sleep helps to prevent drinkers from literally drinking themselves to death, although there have been cases when comas and death have resulted from overprinting in children. The kind of sleep depends on the amount ingested earlier.
A rousing drunk will, of course, result in a deep, "dead to the world" type of sleep. The average drunken experience will cause a restless and fitful night and feelings of tiredness and irritability the next morning. Tiredness may be the least of the "morning after" discomforts. In fact, all of the physical effects of overprinting that we generally think of when we think of a hangover may not be nearly as serious as the psychological hangover. The events of the previous night take on an entirely different aspect in the cold light of the following morning.
The worries and fears, which alcohol masked for a few hours, return and are often accompanied by new ones. The nausea increases when the person remembers what he or she has said or done under the influence of alcohol. Worse still, the child may not be able to remember what happened at all! Such blackouts are familiar to people who habitually get drunk. (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 142) At a party late at night, you may tell a person about some terribly important matter that he or she will have forgotten by next morning.
But the next time that person transcends into the alcohol state, he " ll remember it perfectly. The same thing happens to certain chronic drinkers who forget where they hid their bottle until they " re again as drunk as when they put it there in the first place. This factor is one reason why alcohol is not considered a consciousness-changing drug. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 261) For most children, it is very disquieting not to be able to remember their actions during the drunken state. They suspect their behavior to have been shameful or embarrassing, but unless they ask what happened, or someone reports it to them, they can only worry about it. One thing the drinker can often know exactly is just what great creative production occurred during the drinking experience.
Frequently, drinkers will write down such ideas when they come to them. Children have been known to write entire papers while under the influence of alcohol. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 180) But the masterpiece of the night before generally seems pretty mundane the next morning. And if it is not mundane, then it is likely to be impossible to accomplish. The drinker who conceives a great idea for a business realizes when sober that he or she hasn't either the background or the experience or the money for something that seemed entirely possible the night before. The foregoing description of what one who overdrives experiences is somewhat familiar to everyone who has been drunk -- even once. But there are major differences in the long range results of occasional versus habitual intoxication.
Chronic overprinting leads to destruction of the brain cells, and studies have shown that severe alcoholics score very much the same on tests as people with brain damage do. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 270) This is especially true when in both cases the damage is to those areas of the brain that control judgment, learning from experience, ability to work toward a goal. In other words, some alcoholics no longer have the brain mechanisms to exercise good judgment, to learn from experience, and to be able to work toward the goal of kicking the alcoholism habit. (Freed, P. E. , & Nattkemper, L. , 1997, p. 28) Alcoholics have been studied to see how damage to other parts of the brain affects their functioning. The common idea of a chronic drunk is that, among other things, he or she is no longer able to carry on an intelligent conversation.
But studies have shown this is often not the case. The brain has two halves, or hemispheres. Among other things, the left hemisphere controls language. Among other things, the right hemisphere controls thought, the recognition of shapes, textures, space relationships between objects. According to the results of several studies, the left brain hemisphere seems to suffer less from years of heavy drinking than does the right hemisphere. (Anton, R. F. , & Swift, R.
M. , 2003, S 64) So, an alcoholic may be able to speak very intelligently, but meanwhile his or her ability to think, to distinguish among objects by touch and sight, may be seriously impaired. Since these are unconscious mechanisms, an alcoholic may not realize that his or her ability to perceive is not what it once was. The words schizophrenic and psychotic are frequently associated with the behavior resulting from the use of drugs such as LSD or speed, but less commonly used in connection with alcohol. A lot of psychological jargon is thrown around so freely these days that many people use it without really knowing what it means.
For example, someone can be very insecure without being paranoid. The following list is given to clarify terms as they are used here: A psychosis is a serious disorder of the mind. Schizophrenia is a term applied to forms of psychosis in which there is a separation of mental functions, often with the affected person assuming a second personality. Delusions are errors in judgment or perception, such as the idea that one has no stomach and thus refuses to take food. Paranoia is a form of fixed delusional insanity, usually of persecution. A hallucination is an error in perception affecting one of the sense organs, such as imagining seeing lights in pitch darkness or hearing one's name called when there is complete silence. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 191 - 192) It is highly unlikely that the average child has ever encountered many of the mental states defined above.
But disorders called chronic psychoses can develop in people who consume even small amounts of alcohol, although it is likely that they were prone to serious emotional disturbances and behavior disorders to begin with. At any rate, in the state of intoxication, these people can experience confusion, disorientation, hallucinations, delusions, and very aggressive behavior for several hours. A person can be a heavy user of alcohol over a long period without experiencing any serious mental disorders. Then, suddenly, a single episode of excessive drinking can bring on auditory hallucinations, delusions, marked fear or panic, and sometimes attempts at suicide. This state usually lasts between one and four weeks. Then there are the psychological effects of withdrawal from the drug alcohol; when someone who is actually physically dependent on the drug is deprived of it.
Daily usage of alcohol over many weeks or months in large and increasing doses causes the body to adapt to alcohol and actually need it. Should alcohol suddenly become unavailable, or only available in smaller amounts, delirium tremens, commonly called DT's, occur. (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 2000, p. 101) DT's can also occur following a long course of drinking, which has ended in a bout; or the condition may be brought on by an injury or deep worries in a heavy drinker. First, there are tremors, or shakes, all over the body, especially in the hands and tongue. Then, there is no appetite, nausea sets in, the person is feverish and moves about at random.
The hallucinations come. The person starts seeing things that are not there -- spiders, flies, mice, rats coming out of the wall, or the floor. The terror of such an experience can lead to suicide or cause the person to withdraw into a state of permanent mental feebleness. Paranoid psychoses can be speeded up by alcohol use. So can schizophrenia. Both disorders begin without the help of alcohol, but alcohol helps mask their symptoms and speed their progress.
It is now believed that half of all first admissions and 40 percent of all admissions to state mental hospitals are alcohol related. Between 10 percent and 20 percent of the long-term patients in hospitals are there because of permanent psychoses from alcohol. This is 20 percent more than ten years ago. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 214) Bibliography Anton, R. F. , & Swift, R. M. (2003). Current pharmacotherapies of alcoholism: A U.
S. perspective. American Journal on Addictions, 12 (2), S 52 -S 68. Berndt, Thomas and Keefe, Keunho (1995). Friends' Influence on Adolescents' Adjustment to School. Child Development, 66, 1312 - 1329.
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. (2000). Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21 st Century. Washington, DC. Casswell, S. , Pledger, M. , & Hooper, R. (2003). Socioeconomic status and drinking patterns in young adults. Addiction, 98 (5), 601 - 610.
Freed, P. E. , & Nattkemper, L. (1997). Naltrexone: A controversial therapy for alcohol dependence. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, 35 (7), 24 - 28. Haugaard, Jeffrey J. (2000).
Problematic Behaviors during Adolescence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kipke, Michele D. (Ed. ). (1999). Risks and Opportunities: Synthesis of Studies on Adolescence. Report of the Governing Board of the National Research Council.
Washington, DC. Mason, B. J. (1996). Dosing issues in the pharmacotherapy of alcoholism. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 20 (7), 10 A- 16 A. Richardson, J. (1997).
Alcohol and Children. London: Pluto Press. White, W. L. (2003). The history of 'medicinal specifics' as addiction cures in the United States. Addiction, 98 (3), 261 - 268.
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